


let it ricochet, trying to keep composure while the ground shakes

by inkwelled



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Compliant, Captain Marvel Spoilers, F/F, First Kiss, Missing Scene, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 05:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkwelled/pseuds/inkwelled
Summary: The same hands that glow in a way she can’t explain and have felled full armies in the skies above cup her cheeks. Maria lets them.Six years. A lifetime. It all melts away.





	let it ricochet, trying to keep composure while the ground shakes

**Author's Note:**

> title ; [whispers](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=0ahUKEwiWs4e6mvTgAhVEhuAKHa7uA9YQzPwBCAM&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgenius.com%2FSvrcina-whispers-lyrics&psig=AOvVaw3oalRHe48fphbiqJju-yST&ust=1552191602897626) by svrcina 
> 
> me, to mobile ao3 as i publish this because my laptop is being difficult: do not blow this for us

Maria has seen Carol put her fist through ships, through hulls of metal she’s never seen before. Maria has watched as Carol flew through supernovas as easy as breathing, like some kind of diety and briefly thinks that maybe her mother is right. 

 

Maybe God is real. 

 

Carol’s hands haven’t changed but the woman controlling them has. Or maybe Carol never really changed - Captain Marvel, Vers - they’re all the woman she met years ago. The same woman she kissed behind Pancho’s all those years ago. The same woman who banged on her door without fail every morning before the sun rose to run drills, who was her sole rock when Monica’s father walked out. 

 

Carol Danvers, the same woman who kisses her soft and slow and deep in her backyard when her hands are still warm from battle. Now. And Maria doesn’t hesitate this time, the memories she’s pushed down for so long of her hands bunched in Carol’s jacket, the rough brick behind her head when Carol tasted like shitty beer and the wind rising to the occasion unheeded.

 

Maria kisses her back, just as intense. The same hands that glow in a way she can’t explain and have felled full armies in the skies above cup her cheeks. Maria lets them. 

 

It’s been six years and they’re both so different but their lips, if nothing else, remember each other. Maria wishes for the thousandth time that she never let Carol go, never let her take the mission.

 

But Carol came back. Came back to Earth, to her home, to her.

 

Carol tastes like the years were never there. Her lips are chapped, warm, like mint gum and adrenaline and the feeling of having the top down in a car going over the speed limit. 

 

Maria can taste her smile.

 

She doesn't need to to know it's there. Carol has always smiled.

 

Carol's thumbs on her cheekbones move down, cupping the sides of her neck briefly. In the cool night, Maria shivers, knowing it isn't the air against her bare shoulders but Carol's hands come to cover her shoulders regardless.

 

Maria remembers this dance as if it was yesterday. And maybe it was just yesterday, the stolen kisses before bed and behind the bar when Carol won at darts - _again_ \- and Maria watched the curve of her mouth when they shouted karaoke lyrics. 

 

With her heightened senses, Carol hears the footsteps first. Maria steps away, nodding because she knows. 

 

“An ever-changing constant,” Carol says softly as Maria’s daughter thunders down the back stairs. Maria can see the brown leather between Monica's fingers, the jacket that Maria told her to put away for so long. 

 

Monica believes it was the mishap with ketchup at the diner two years ago. Maria doesn’t tell her it’s because the sight becomes too painful in those six years, because the worn-in jacket no longer smells like its owner. 

 

Her daughter hands it to Carol and the reunion is like coming home. Maria watches, already missing Carol’s hands on her cheeks and that warmth of her body she’s so missed. 

 

Carol looks at her. Maria nods. It’s been so little time but they know each other like the backs of their hands so Maria buries the urge to tangle her fingers in Carol’s curls. 

 

She leaves behind a trail of pure light Maria can’t help but reach out as if to touch, although she knows she can't. “Higher, faster, further baby,” she whispers so softly she knows Monica doesn’t hear her over the booming sound of Carol breaking the sound barrier. 

 

Carol stomps down the clench in her breastbone when she leaves the earth’s atmosphere. So little time after so much apart. 

 

An imbalance. 

 

She wishes she had more time to trace the new lines around Maria’s eyes with her thumbs and kiss the scar on the bow of her lips. She longs to relearn Maria's body, the curves she's known has always been there but have developed within the span of peace. Of having a daughter.

 

For a moment, Carol stares down at the peaceful clouds of Earth and wonders what staying would look like. 

 

Monica’s name around Maria’s throat spurs her onward. She leads Tolas home, knowing she will do everything in her power to protect her home. 

 

Both the planet and the white house deep in the heart of Louisiana, the fighter pilot that looks up at the sky every night and swears the shooting star isn’t a star and her wide-eyed daughter. 

 

Carol fights for the protection of Earth. 

 

It is not her duty. 

 

She has never followed orders. 


End file.
